DAT Done - "If I had to re-take, I would..." by Worried12345

[Worried12345]

ANY questions are welcome! SDN has helped me SO much and I would not be posting this if it wasn't for this website (A BIG THANK YOU!!!). Shout-out to TXpredent, njohns24 and eBayGod for helping me pull through the last 2 weeks. You three have helped me much more than you know.

5/11/2012 DAT Scores

PAT: 26 (99.6)
Bio: 23 (97.4)
GC: 22 (91.8)
OC: 22 (90.4)
RC: 21 (76.7)
QR: 20 (94.0)

TS: 22 (95.6)
AA: 22 (97.0)

Materials:

Chad's Videos
Kaplan
Topscore
Achiever (tests 1&2)
QVault (Bio Only)
DAT Destroyer
Cliff's Bio
Crack DAT PAT

Instead of posting a regular breakdown, I thought it would be beneficial to some people (who are starting out) if I did it this way... If I had to retake (or tell my best friend how to study for the test, I would say...

3 months (12 weeks), No school, No work, just studying
*NOTECARDS MUST BE MADE AT EVERY STEP (this is the absolute most important thing you can do), and you have to actually STUDY THEM

First 3 weeks = Chad's Videos + Cliffs AP Bio + 1 CDP test
Next 3 weeks = Kaplan (online quizzes) + DAT Destroyer + 2 CDP tests
Next 3 weeks = DAT destroyer + Kaplan Midterm + 2 CDP test
Next 3 weeks = Topscore Tests + Kaplan Tests (Final + 3 Practice tests) + 5 CDP tests + DATqvault Bio

cum GPA: 3.883
sci GPA: ~3.812

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[TXpredent]

Great scores! Although you did fine on RC and QR, your scores make me worry bc I was doing even worse than you on those! Congratulations buddy, now you can focus on your apps!!

I'm done with Top Score, going over #3 tomorrow and will probably just do all those Kaplan subject quizzes and more Destroyer to stay fresh. My test is Sunday!! How did everything compare to Top Score? I'm really really scared. I keep finding things I used to know but forgot.

 

[njohns24]

*

 

[Worried12345]

Thanks guys!

TX: Everything was pretty much on par with Topscore... GC was just as hard as ANY practice exam (for me, GC being my worst subject on average). For some reason PAT was pretty much a joke... I honestly think I only missed about 1 question from there (probably an angle ranking or a pattern folding). CDP ****s on the real thing so I had about 9 minutes left over to go through "marked" questions. And my friend who took his DATs from 2 years ago said everything on PAT looked "terrible, not-crisp, and it was as if they just photoscanned angles and put it on". For me, EVERYTHING WAS CRYSTAL CLEAR. It was just as sharp as CDP. They must have re-vamped everything because everything was beautiful.

I have the utmost confidence in both of you. You two will do great!!! Just push through and honestly, the last day "cramming" of random things that I wasn't so sure about definitely helped me. I am usually VERY VERY against last minute cramming, but it reinforced a lot of my answers for bio.

 

[tmaxwell13]

Worried, do you feel that achievers PAT helped you at all?

and how was the RC? comparable to Topscore i am assuming?

And do you feel like learning from your mistakes throughout topscore helped in the sciences? especially GC and bio?

 

[Dotoday]

Congratulations. You did great.

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk

 

[Member 8586]

congrats on the awesome scores! now u can change your username! lol how did DAT QVault square up compared to the Bio section?

what did you use for QR? just Destroyer's section?

what source did you feel was most in-line for reading?

did Destroyer cover pretty much everything for OC and GC?

 

[Salmoides]

Congrats man I knew that you would kill it! Totally awesome PAT score! Have you always been good at the PAT? Would you mind posting some of your cdp scores. I'm retaking mostly because of that section.

 

[TXpredent]

i keep going back and forth to compare your Top Score scores to your DAT scores to keep giving me hope lol. Congrats again!

 

[Worried12345]

tmaxwell13: Achiever PAT was OK, but CDP is loads better. In my opinion, anyone would benefit much, much more from CDP than any other PAT prep material. RC was absolutely comparable to Topscore. However, the scoring on Topscore was a little generous... I was doing decently well in RC on Topscore, but on the test I still only scored 21 (and I felt as though I did well on the actual thing, had enough time over to go through my "marked" questions and fix several of them). Topscore Bio and GC were pretty much dead on too. GC was VERY difficult though. Any of the "harder" questions that I experienced in GC in different practice exams still definitely showed up on the test. PREP HARD for this! B

8586: I seriously am SO glad I got Bio Qvault. QVault definitely reinforced a LOT of my decisions. It's really, really good practice material in my book (with great explanations). For QR, I only used Destroyer's section and I only used it once. Any other practice I had was through full length tests... I definitely made notecards on any QR question that I got wrong, and redid them habitually. For RC, any material will work! Kaplan, Topscore, and I hate to admit this, but Achiever would actually help you too. I definitely improved my S&D with Achiever 1&2 (road-mapping was impossible with Achiever for me). Destroyer covered 90% of OC and GC... It did a great job and if you know the Road-Maps by heart, you'll do great on the reactions in OC. I still would suggest to make notecards of any weird questions you get from practice tests. The last 10% that weren't covered by Destroyers were "variations of periodic trends (basicity, acidity, etc).

Salmoides: Thanks! I haven't always been good at PAT at all. After a couple of CDP I learned a lot of little tricks to do better, so I made sure to try to "blaze" through the questions to have enough time to review the questions I marked. I'll be back to post up my CDP scores!

 

[ushaseos]

Congrats on the excellent scores. With your solid scores and GPA you're in business friend. If I may suggest though, change your username from "Worried12345" to "Relaxed12345" since you really have no reason to worry any more!

 

[Worried12345]

Thank you ushaeseos! Hahaha I don't know if I'll ever be able to change my username... I'm always worried hahaha!

Salmoides Request for CDP Scores...

These were taken every 3 days up until the test...

1: 23 (Missed 8)
2: 21 (Missed 13)
3: 20 (Missed 18)
4: 22 (Missed 12)
5: 24 (Missed 6)
6: 24 (Missed 6)
7: 23 (Missed 9)
8: 24 (Missed 6)

Now that I think about it... CDP may be a little generous on their scores? I'm pretty sure the DAT wouldn't give me a 26 if I missed 6!

 

[Salmoides]

Thanks worried!

 

[Member 8586]

tmaxwell13: Achiever PAT was OK, but CDP is loads better. In my opinion, anyone would benefit much, much more from CDP than any other PAT prep material. RC was absolutely comparable to Topscore. However, the scoring on Topscore was a little generous... I was doing decently well in RC on Topscore, but on the test I still only scored 21 (and I felt as though I did well on the actual thing, had enough time over to go through my "marked" questions and fix several of them). Topscore Bio and GC were pretty much dead on too. GC was VERY difficult though. Any of the "harder" questions that I experienced in GC in different practice exams still definitely showed up on the test. PREP HARD for this! B

8586: I seriously am SO glad I got Bio Qvault. QVault definitely reinforced a LOT of my decisions. It's really, really good practice material in my book (with great explanations). For QR, I only used Destroyer's section and I only used it once. Any other practice I had was through full length tests... I definitely made notecards on any QR question that I got wrong, and redid them habitually. For RC, any material will work! Kaplan, Topscore, and I hate to admit this, but Achiever would actually help you too. I definitely improved my S&D with Achiever 1&2 (road-mapping was impossible with Achiever for me). Destroyer covered 90% of OC and GC... It did a great job and if you know the Road-Maps by heart, you'll do great on the reactions in OC. I still would suggest to make notecards of any weird questions you get from practice tests. The last 10% that weren't covered by Destroyers were "variations of periodic trends (basicity, acidity, etc).

Salmoides: Thanks! I haven't always been good at PAT at all. After a couple of CDP I learned a lot of little tricks to do better, so I made sure to try to "blaze" through the questions to have enough time to review the questions I marked. I'll be back to post up my CDP scores!

thanks ill def get qvault and i almost have the orgo roadmaps down...for RC, im gunna use crack dat reading, maybe some qvault and then just the prac tests..

ur comment to the other user about GC being difficult - harder than destroyer's? and are you referring to calculation problems or other types as well?

 

[biomolecmed]

Great scores. Another example of the time when hard work pays off. Congratulations.

 

[Worried12345]

GC on the DAT for me was JUST as hard as Destroyers. A very fair amount of the questions were time consumers just like Destroyers. There were a LOT of calculation problems. Pretty much any GC question I ever encountered was emulated in some shape/way or form on the test. Everything was fair game! I was very surprised how far-reaching the GC questions were. There were other "trend questions" too, and those were the "easier" ones. Other topics were EAS, acidity of benzene rings, and ionic size trends... Pretty much anything.

 

[Member 8586]

GC on the DAT for me was JUST as hard as Destroyers. A very fair amount of the questions were time consumers just like Destroyers. There were a LOT of calculation problems. Pretty much any GC question I ever encountered was emulated in some shape/way or form on the test. Everything was fair game! I was very surprised how far-reaching the GC questions were. There were other "trend questions" too, and those were the "easier" ones. Other topics were EAS, acidity of benzene rings, and ionic size trends... Pretty much anything.

im curious as to what kind of time allotment people recommend for the science section - would 20min bio, 40gc, 30oc sound about right u think?